There
are four places in John’s gospel account where Jesus ends asentence (or sentence clause) with the use of the verb"to be" in the first-person singular of the presenttense. This verb is actually the common verb “to be”
of NT Greek and, as such, occurs in its numerous conjugated forms throughout the
NT. It nowhere implies divinity or
preexistence.

Yet,
many English-language versions persist in rendering each of the four
clause-final occurrences in all-capitals, as if to imply an equivalence to the
Hebrew tetragrammation YHWH. The ultimate inference to be made is that Jesus
existed eternally as the timelessly self-existent YAHWEH.

The
reality is that we who speak English often terminate sentence (or a clause),
simply uttering "I am,"to assert that "I am just as I have said I am," or "I
amjust who I said all along I am."
Jesus had
reason of his own --at least four times, as
recorded by John -- to terminate simply by
saying : "I am," or "ego eimi," in the Greek NT. His intention in doing so, as
he himself explains, is to affirm that he is just who he has
repeatedly claimed to be. On each such occasion, he is quoted using the common
verb "to be"in the "koine"(or
New Testament) Greek, inflected in the first
person singular of thepresent tense of the
indicative mood as "ego eimi."

On
numerous occasions, however, Jesus identifies himself explicitly asGod's Son and Messiah, using precisely the same "I am"
("ego eimi" ) in the Greek text. If it calls those men 'gods' to whom God's
word was addressed – andScripture cannot lose
its force -- do you claim that I blasphemed
when, as he whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, Isaid, 'I am God's Son' ?" (Jn 10: 35, 36).

Other NT figures also had occasion to use the same “I am”: “I too am a man who
knows the meaning of an order, having soldiers under my command. …” (Lk 7: 8).

Specifically, the six forms of the present-tenseindicative of "to be " in NT Greek are :

Singular Plural

1st eimi esmen

2nd ei este

3rd esti eisi(n)

"I
am" is rendered simply as : "ego eimi," pronounced like a singleword with stress on the ‘o’ of "ego." Not only is "ego
eimi" (or, simple “eimi,” minus the pronoun) to be found with various NT figures
as subjects, but all the much more so is the same verb in all its various
persons, numbers, tenses and moods employed to link all manner of subjects with
their NT contexts.

Of
the four occurrences of a sentence-ending (or clause-ending) "I am," the
favorite among those who insist that Jesus existed eternally seems clearly to
be that of Jn 8: 58 :"I solemnly declare it : before Abraham came to be, I
am."

The
common assumption is that he identifies himself as the one whosename is I AM (WHO AM). In reality, he never claims
preexistence ordeity at any time. His
elliptical "I am" in both this and three other
verses emphasizes that he was just who he had been saying he was at the time
and who hehad been destined to be from long
before Abraham.

In
John 8 are found two of the other three instances of a concluding"I am" by Jesus. In Jn 8: 24 - 28, Jesus tells the Pharisees: "That is why I said you would die in your sins. You will surely die
inyour sins unless you come to believe that I
am." "Who are you, then ?"they asked him.
Jesus answered : "What I have been telling you fromthe beginning ... ."

In
no uncertain terms, Jesus tells them: I am "what I have beentelling you from the beginning ...." Here, in the
first occurrence of a concluding I am, he explains just what he means by it.

He
continues : "'... I could say much about you in condemnation, but no, I only
tell the world what I have heard from him, the Truthful One whosent me.' They did not grasp that he was speaking to
them of theFather. Jesus continued : 'When you
lift up the Son of Man [on a wooden fixture], you willcome to realize that I am and that I do nothing of
myself. I say onlywhat the Father has taught
me.' "(Note that, had he been God in the flesh, he would not have been
exclusively dependent on his Father’s teachings for everything he had to say,
but would have known by virtue of his own deity and past eternity.) How would
they realize he is the very one he has claimed to be?

"He
began to teach them that the Son of Man had to suffer much, berejected by the elders, chief priests and the scribes,
be put to deathand rise three days later" (Mk
8: 31). Jesus says he will be at least
three-days dead. "At this, the Jews responded, 'What sign can you show us
authorizing you to do these things ?' 'Destroy this temple' was Jesus's answer,'and in three days I will raise it up.' They retorted,
'This templetook forty-six years to build, and
you are going to raise it up inthree days !'
Actually, he was talking about the temple of his body.Only after Jesus had been raised from the dead did his
disciples recallthat he had said this, and
come to believe the Scriptures and the wordhe
had spoken" (Jn 2: 18 - 22). Accordingly, he will be no more thanthree-days dead.

Of
course, he had also privately spoken to the Pharisee Niccodemus,saying "just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the
desert, so mustthe Son of Man be lifted up,
that all who believe may have eternallife with
him" (Jn 3: 14, 15). In this way, they would "... realize that I am and that I
do nothing ofmyself. I say only what the
Father has taught me" (Jn 8: 28).

The
remaining occurrence of a clause-ending "I AM" is found in Jn 13: 18 - 20 :
"What I say is not said of all, for I know the kind of men I chose.My purpose here is the fulfillment of Scripture : He
who partookof bread with me has raised his
heel against me. I tell you thisnow, before
it takes place, so that, when it takes place, you may believethat I am. I solemnly assure you, he who accepts
anyone I send accept me and, in accepting me, accepts him who sent me."

When
Jesus says "I tell you this now so that, when it takes place, youmay believe that I am," he does so for the same reason
he had earlier said (in Jn 8: 28)"When you
lift up the Son of Man, you will come to realize that I am ... ." They would
know that he is just who he says he is because of what he had already said of
himself in Mt 12: 40 :

"Some of the scribes and Pharisees then spoke up, saying, 'Teacher,we want to see you work some signs.' He answered : 'An
evil andunfaithful age is eager for a sign !
No sign will be given it but thatof the
prophet Jonah. Just as Jonah spent three days and three nights inthe belly of the whale, so will the Son of Man spend
three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth.'"

It
may be famously recalled that Jesus put the question of his identity directly
to Peter: “Who doyou say I am?” he asks, eliciting the answer:" You are
the Messiah,Son of the Living God!" (Mt 16:
16).

Jesus , of course, comments that Peter'sresponse had been divinely revealed to him and not
humanly reasoned. Yet, if Jesus was, at that time, God turned human, Peter's
answer (as actuallygiven) somehow avoids the
question of just who the Christ is and, instead, only says something that was
technically true about him.

Indeed, if Jesus had been the supposed “Eternal Made Flesh,” a correct response
could only have been of the form: “You are the Living God made flesh, having
come to us nowas Messiah!“ The answer as actually delivered by Peter
would then have stood as the grossest understatement of all time.

Following his
final clause-ending “I AM” utterance (Jn 13: 19), Jesus goes on to emphasize
his actual relationship to the Father: “Do you not believe that I am in the
Father and the Father is in me? The words are not spoken of myself; it is the
Father who lives in me accomplishing his works. … He who does not love me does
not keep my words. Yet the word you hear is not mine; it comes from the Father
who sent me” (Jn 14: 10, 24).

Had
Jesus actually been "God in the Flesh" he would not have stillbeen dependent on the Father -- even near the end of
his earthlylife -- for everything he had to
say, as in Jn 14: 24."God-Incarnate "would by
that time have recalled who he was and had been for all eternity, and, at the
very least,the basics of his own teachings. As
it was, he never had any such recall.

Speaking in his native Aramaic, Jesus doubtlessly made numerous references to
the one God YAHWEH. The nature of Greek orthography – its writing system – does
not, however, accommodate a tetragram like YHWH. The ‘h’ occurs only as a
syllable- initial and is indicated by a diacritic placed over the vowel it
leads. Further, attempting a Greek transliteration of the vowel-pointed YAHWEH
would be awkward (and
somewhat incomplete) at best.

The
name YAHWEH occurs somewhat implicitly in the Greek text through phrase and
adjectival qualifiers that are built around the root for the noun referring to
the third heaven. This “third heaven” (2 Cor 12: 1 – 6) is not the name of a
place as traditionally supposed, but the state of timeless existence now
occupied by God, the now-resurrected Christ and the angels who were created to
be eternal. These qualifiers take the form “in the heavens,” “of the heavens”
and “heavenly.” These constructions – with the exception of the last – typically do
not appear in the English versions.

Accordingly, Jesus begins his sample prayer for the coming Kingdom by
addressing the Father as “Our Father, who in the heavens [are] … ,” as recorded
in Mt 6 of the NT Greek. Likewise, he comments on Peter’s inspired answer to the
question on Jesus' actual identity by reference to “my heavenly Father” (Mt
16: 17). In each of these, as well as in other references to the Father, he
alludes to (or addresses directly) his Father as the one eternal God, YAHWEH.